Kensington Publishing has entered an exclusive partnership with
the Books-A-Million bookstore chain to launch Lyrical High Notes, a new line
that will release select titles from Kensington’s digital imprint in trade
paperback editions. Lyrical High Point trade paperbacks will be offered for sale
for a limited time exclusively though BAM and sell for $12.95.

The two largest trade publishers in the world controlled nearly
two-thirds of all ebook best-sellers in the first half of 2014.

Penguin
Random House and HarperCollins combined to appear on the Digital Book World
Ebook Best-Seller list a combined 406 times out of a total of 650 possible,
about 65%. Penguin Random House led the way with 250 best-sellers (40% of the
total) and HarperCollins had 156 (nearly 25%). The two companies also combined
for 19 No. 1 best-sellers out of 25 total. HarperCollins had 12, driven by the
success of Veronica Roth’s Divergent in the first quarter, and Penguin Random
House had seven.

International publisher Samhain Publishing® today announced initial steps in its
strategic plan to reorganize operations and develop industry partnerships,
allowing the company to be more agile in the ever-changing ebook marketplace. As
part of this exciting transition, owner Christina Brashear has returned as
Publisher and her first order of business was to restructure the editorial team.
As a result, current Publisher Lindsey Faber will depart the organization to
serve in a consulting role and Heather Osborn will transition from Editorial
Director to freelance editor.
Read more.

Cleis
Press announced the creation of Tempted Romance, a new imprint devoted to an
erotic romance list. The imprint will be headed up by Brenda Knight, as
publisher (Knight also serves as publisher of Cleis), releasing 12 titles per
year.
Read more.

In the
eighties and nineties, the model Fabio Lanzoni popularized “the clinch”—the
image on Harlequin paperback covers of a muscled man clutching an enraptured
woman against his bare pecs. When I was in high school, my friends and I used to
hunt down these Harlequins from used-book stores. Our favorite featured an
improbably Scottish Fabio who spoke in a brogue—we knew what was under his kilt.
Read more.

If you want to attempt something new in digital
publishing, start with the romance genre. What have romance publishers done
that’s so astounding? They were among the first publishers to adopt ebook-first
and digital-only titles at a time when books were only released as ebooks after
a hardcover run. They were the first in the industry to offer 70% royalties to
authors on digital-only titles despite accusations that they were pandering to
authors who couldn’t get published otherwise. They were the first to offer
nearly instantaneous publication from a major publisher, reducing the
ridiculously long wait time for a new book to reach market. They among the first
industry to open their arms to hybrid authors, giving them the freedom to write
books for their publishers while also writing other unrelated titles
specifically to launch as self-published works.
Read more.

News Corp. is buying Harlequin Enterprises, a publisher of novels such as
“Destiny’s Last Bachelor?” and “The Heartbreaker Prince,” for C$455 million
($415 million) in cash, according to a statement today. Murdoch is purchasing
Harlequin from Canada’s Torstar Corp. (TS/B) and will fold it into News Corp.’s
HarperCollins books unit, which already has a romance imprint called Avon
Romance.
Read more